


A Complete, Unmatched Set

by triedunture



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Amnesia, Correspondence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Flashbacks, M/M, Multi, Parenthood, Polyamory, Sharing a Bed, Shaving, Threesome, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-26
Updated: 2016-03-26
Packaged: 2018-05-29 06:10:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6362671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/triedunture/pseuds/triedunture
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eight years after the war ends, Hamilton finds his old compatriot and lover John Laurens, very much alive but without possession of his memories. Eliza takes charge, as she did eight years previous.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Complete, Unmatched Set

**Author's Note:**

  * For [subiteveneinorem](https://archiveofourown.org/users/subiteveneinorem/gifts).



Eliza checks the stores in her mending basket but cannot find the proper needle. She has the thread pinched in her fingers: the blackest silk to repair the small tear in little Philip's winter stockings. Her fingertips run along the worn wood grain of the floorboards, searching. She cannot see a thing in the watery light of late afternoon, as the sun cannot reach her parlor window for all the buildings rising higher around their house. She misses New York, where at least the darkness was knowable. Here in Philadelphia, the air is closer, heavier. The people watch her and Alexander as they pass on the street as if waiting to see some great calamity. 

Her Alexander, always on a path to anger somebody. Today it is the people who say the Treasury Department is creating their own private military to guard the coast. It is Secretary Hamilton's doing, they whisper, that the clippers patrol just outside the harbors. Eliza knows this as well as she knows her son's face because she listens to every word that Alexander whispers in his sleep, when he speaks to dreams.

She finds the needle by pricking her ring finger quite badly. A sharp intake of breath, the swelling of a single bead of blood. Eliza sucks her fingertip between her teeth and fishes the needle from its hiding spot between the floorboards. 

Far away in the study, the clock is chiming. 

Alexander will not be home until it is well past dark. 

Eliza begins her mending, but her mind is elsewhere.

________________________________

The Clipper Revenue Service, they call it. Hamilton wants everyone to remember why they are doing this: not for power or to take up arms, not a show of force or a flexing of the cabinet's muscle. It's about money. The people want prosperity but they do not want to enforce the laws to retain it, a fact that maddens Alexander to no end.

Their house on Third Street is just a few blocks from the wharf, and so when a boy comes to his office with a message from one of the clipper ship captains, Hamilton considers stopping for supper on the way. Ah, it's too late, however; the sun has slipped out of the sky, and he will have a cold plate waiting for him on the sideboard with a cloth draped over it to keep the flies at bay. May as well go straight to the docks, he reasons.

"We thought it best to alert you directly, sir," the captain says, "as such a thing has never happened before on our patrols. Perhaps, with your legal mind…."

Hamilton scratches an itch just beside his eyebrow. Now he must be the country's lawyer as well as its banker. Very well, he will be all things.

"Captain, I beg you speak plainly or show me what is the matter." His impatience has only grown since leaving New York; one wouldn't think such a feat possible, but there it is. 

The captain—a former Irishman named Patrick Dennis, a young, clean, dashing figure—escorts Hamilton aboard the _Vigilant_. The first of the fleet of ten, its name has always pleased Hamilton's sense of poetry. He follows the ship's master along the deck and down into the dark and gloomy hold. 

"They tossed him overboard as they tried to outrun us, Mr. Secretary," Captain Dennis says as they work their way down a short ladder. "My thinking is, well, he must have been a stowaway of some kind. Dead weight. Pirates and looters often collect them."

"I see your meaning," Hamilton says. "And you shall need my legal opinion on what is to be done with the prisoner before you leave for—?" He stops. Silenced by what he sees.

They stand before the makeshift brig. It is little more than a cage formed by walls of iron bars. Crouching on the floor of this is a man very near Hamilton's own age, dressed in filthy tatters. He wears no cravat or jacket, and in this state of undress, the skin of his forearms and neck shows the whorls of dried saltwater and maritime grime. There is a patchy beard covering the prisoner's face, but when that face tips up to regard Hamilton's entrance, there is no question.

Alexander knows this face. He knows these eyes. 

Words will not leave his tongue. He stands there gaping at the man in the cage. The man simply stares back with no trace of the same powerful recognition.

"John?" Hamilton finally whispers. "John Laurens?"

________________________________

Eliza thinks it is a strange thing, to be betrothed. Soon she will be given free rein of this man, this handsome, fiery man who writes her _such_ letters. In a few short months she will be allowed to touch him however she pleases in the privacy of a room which will be theirs, and she will be able to direct him to touch her. And yet, because of the cruelty of time and custom, for now they must sit—not too close—here on the divan and converse politely before their chaperone, Eliza's own mother.

She wishes for a moment alone if only to voice these thoughts to Alexander, who would find them very charming thoughts, she believes. He is thrilled with the small flashes of cleverness she is able to muster for him; she did not ever think anyone would call her clever at all. She does not write as he does nor read as much, but who does? Deep considerations are not in her wheelhouse, if she is honest (and she has been, with him). Eliza prefers the tangible, the practical. Ideas have their place, of course, but what good are they if they cannot be turned into action? For this reason, she finds herself in a state of discomfited awe when she catches a glimpse of Alexander's mind, which is a mapless place. 

Peggy calls from the library, some query to their mother that is a complete fabrication if ever Eliza heard one. She can see Alexander's eyes flash where he glances at her; he has planned this. Of course he has. 

Mrs. Schuyler's attempts at calming Peggy all fail and in the end their mother rises with a huff to go see what is the matter. Alexander is holding her hands in his the moment they're alone.

"Do you think it very strange—?" Eliza begins. She wants to share what has been nagging at her mind all afternoon, but Alexander does not hear her.

"I have written my dearest friends," he says quickly, "to tell them all about my beloved Betsey. I could not bear to wait any longer. The Marquis is now the owner of a small collection of couplets—in French, of course—describing your sweet nature. There is a tailor on Rector Street who knows exactly how your smile affects me. And Colonel Laurens…." Alexander flushes and looks down at their joined hands. Eliza has seen myriad emotions on his finely made face, but never shyness. 

She decides it becomes him. A change of pace.

"What has Colonel Laurens learned of me, Alexander?" she teases.

He meets her gaze. His eyes are dark and beautiful. "Everything," he says. "Colonel Laurens has learned everything."

________________________________

He will not speak, the ship's master says. He will not give a name. "Question him if you wish, sir, but—"

"I will do so in private," Hamilton says sharply, and Captain Dennis looks at him askance before slinking away up the ladder.

The floor of the ship's hold is warm and damp when Alexander kneels on it. He stares between the iron slats of the cage and wonders if he's gone insane. John Laurens is dead. John has been dead these eight years. And yet— 

"It's me," Hamilton says. 

The same blank look. It does not change. The prisoner isn't even mildly interested in what he seems to perceive as an interloper. He sucks his teeth, examines his broken and dirty fingernails. 

"It's Ham," Alexander tries. "Hammie. Do you not remember?" A tear falls on his hand where it's pressed against the floor and he realizes his face is wet. "If I am wrong in this, if you are not Laurens, speak. Let me hear your voice so I may understand whether I am talking to a dead man."

"I'm not dead," the prisoner says, his eyes flashing up to meet Alexander's, "but I do not know you. For years, my mind has recognized no one. Including myself."

Hamilton bites down on a sob before it can burst from his throat. It is John's voice. He would know the sound anywhere, no matter how many years it's been. He curls slowly downward, his head nearly touching the wood beneath him.

"And yet you know me?" the man who was John Laurens says slowly. "What am I to you?"

________________________________

In every letter, her Alexander presents the utmost honesty. He writes Eliza such details, bold in his assertions and descriptions of his time in the Army. My beloved Eliza, he will write, I feel that it is my duty as the man who loves you to tell you exactly what sort of man I am. If the knowledge disturbs you, I will not think you unkind. Only let me know your feelings on this so that I might keep my heart as an open book to you always, should you allow it.

How could Alexander ever disturb her, she wonders, and so crafts her short reply. 

He puts it down in his letters, right there in ink and paper, so that Eliza might hold in her hands the very weapons that could destroy him should she wish to do so. Her eyes dance over the words on the pages over and over just to make certain she is not imagining them. 

Beloved Eliza, he writes, you have heard me speak often of my friend and compatriot the Colonel.

Beloved Eliza, he writes, before meeting you I was part of an arrangement with that gentleman which passed the bounds of simple camaraderie and I do not regret it.

Beloved Eliza, he writes, know that I love you. I love you. I love you. 

He writes, and yet I still harbor a love for this man. 

Could you marry such a thing as me? He writes this last, at the bottom of the page, where the ink is smudged.

Eliza waits several days before penning her response. In that time, she is consumed by thoughts of what she should say, and Angelica notes her distraction. "Ah, dear sister, you are so often staring into the distance! I know you think of nothing but the dashing Hamilton at those times."

Her sister knows her well, but not in total, for Eliza never confides this great secret to her. It is something to be locked away in her, not to be shared with others. She takes up a pen and she writes to Alexander. Her letters are shorter than his, not as effusive, but that is her style. She has so many questions that she wishes to get down as quickly as possible: Will I be expected to endure any further liaisons of yours with this man? (She does not name him, knowing as Hamilton must that such things in writing are too dangerous.) Do you think of him always, even when you are with me? (For she could not survive such a thing.) What do you want me to say, Alexander? What is your future wife supposed to think?

His response arrives quickly. He states his love again for her. He tells her he will do whatever she asks of him, and he will not lie. She has never known a creature so prone to transparency of emotion. Hamilton wears his faults and loves as medals on his chest. 

Eliza decides that his honesty is surely a good thing despite all the confusion in her it's caused. It takes a few days' more consideration, during which time she dwells on her old girlhood romances that she still holds dear. Alexander has never asked her to disown those. But then again, they are in the past and John Laurens is very much now with them. She needs to know more. Tangibles. Practicalities. 

Tell me how it is with you and this gentleman, she writes. I'd like to read your full account. How are you when you are alone? What do you say to each other? Does he return your feelings wholly or does he shy away from your declarations? What have you done together in the dark? Do you touch him, and how? 

Alexander answers all of her questions. Thoroughly. He writes her pages and pages of their history, their kisses, John Laurens' fear of loving anyone as baldly as Alexander loves him, the various ways they've lain together, the things that made John call out his name— 

Eliza reads the letter several times before she locks it away in her keepsake box. She posts a reply the very next day: Tell me more. If you have no more stories in truth, tell me what you hope will happen. Be honest, for it is your saving grace with me. 

Her betrothed does as he is bid. He sometimes encloses the correspondence between himself and his lover, missives going back more than a year, to prove that what he says is the truth. Each new letter is a revelation. Even when he is not writing about Laurens or herself, he is writing about his heart and its nature, and Eliza thinks that somehow he is trying to draw her a map to follow. She yearns for nothing more than to find the key to that map, for if she is honest (and she is, with him), the thought of what she might find thrills her.

Finally, she writes to him another letter. I have a proposal of my own to make to you as our wedding day nears, she says. We shall speak of it when next you visit for I do not trust my penmanship in this. I think you will be very pleased; I know I will be, if all goes well.

________________________________

Philip is eight years old and he resists going to sleep just as much as his father. Eliza must entreat him and scold him in turn before finally wrestling him into a clean nightgown. Once he is ensconced under the covers, she relaxes slightly. "Would you like a song tonight?" she asks, taking her seat in a plush chair at his bedside.

"Is Pappa home yet?" Philip whines, and Eliza smoothes his wayward curls back from his pinched face. "I want to hear one of his stories."

"No, darling, he won't be back until much later. I have a story for you, if you will close your eyes and listen."

He pouts but eventually settles back into his pillow with a little huff. Eliza takes a moment to study her son's sweet face, his perfect bowed lips, his boyish freckles. Soon he will be a man, she thinks, and he will not indulge his poor mother in such childish things as a nighttime story. The years, they march on with such terrifying swiftness. Her breath catches in her throat just to think of it.

"Momma?" Philip cracks open one eye. 

"Yes," she says. "Yes, your story. This is one of your favorites: how our country won such a victory at Yorktown." And she recounts the tale with all the correct embellishments: Washington's horse was so very tall, taller than any other in history, and Alexander's bravery was so incredible, and his compatriots all had their part to play in seeing the day won. 

Philip is snoring softly before she even gets to the white flag.

________________________________

Eliza raises her glass at Laurens' exhortations, and the room toasts her and her new husband. It was a pretty toast, not overly long, and gave way gracefully to Angelica, whose words touched at Eliza's heart with keen understanding. It was only later, after she had danced with the General and Alexander and a handful of others, that she finds John Laurens in a quiet corner. His drink dangles untasted in his fingers and a smile touches his lips as he watches Alexander sweeping along with Peggy in a passable minuet.

"Colonel Laurens," she says, arresting his attention. 

"Our beautiful bride," he says, turning and bowing low to her. "I hope you are not about to inquire after my dancing. It is atrocious and I did not wish to harm any of the ladies with it tonight."

"Oh, I would not force a man onto the floor who did not wish to be there," Eliza promises. "I am not so...persuasive as that." She accepts a glass of wine from a passing serving girl.

"You do yourself a disservice, Mrs. Hamilton. Your charms would be enough to make any gentleman forget his clumsy feet." John smiles wide, a radiant if not altogether honest thing. "But I forget myself. You are a married woman now; it is not proper to heap these compliments upon you in this way."

"Colonel, do you not know? A woman once married is ever more susceptible to idle flirtations, as she is so safe an object for them." She sips her wine; it is fairly decent. "And how does your wife fare, so far away in London?"

Laurens' smile falters. "As safe an object as is possible, we hope," John says. He had not told Hamilton of his marriage outright, Eliza knows, and Alexander had only discovered the fact by chance while perusing his friend's correspondance, looking for something else. It had been a point of contention between them, and Alexander had brought Eliza into his confidence on the matter, which pleased her greatly. Now she perceives that John had not been made aware of her knowledge, and she feels her innocent question was poorly done.

"Would you like to take some air with me on the verandah?" Eliza asks suddenly. John's eyes drift toward the dance floor, to Hamilton. She notices with a shake of her head. "No one will miss us. It is just for a moment."

Outside, they are alone. The night air is a cool contrast to the party's building warmth. The sounds of the string instruments are muffled here. A pair of flickering lamps hanging from the verandah posts illuminate John's face, now very drawn and serious. 

"Mrs. Hamilton—" he begins.

"Alexander has shown me the letters," she says. "The ones he's written to you. Yours to him."

He steps away, mortified, a hand in a fist at his side. Then, speaking quickly. "That foolishness is at an end. Please do not think that I would ever knowingly bring shame to your—" 

"So you will not be present for the consummation?" she asks with a cocked brow. It is such a bold thing to say, she cannot believe she has managed it. The wine has fortified her, perhaps. Or perhaps she is tired of being the target of flirtations and never the author.

"Dear god!" Laurens looks to be on the verge of sobbing. He has a beautiful face, she thinks, if one looks at it in just the right manner, through the veil of fond adoration. She should not treat him so cruelly, though, by letting him remain in the dark; she reaches out and takes him by the hand. 

"Forgive me, I forget that any playfulness that I might enjoy with Alexander does not yet exist between us. It is only that I've heard so much of you, I feel as if— We are friends, John, are we not? I hope that we will be, for you are very dear to my beloved husband and I do not want to deprive him of your continued friendship." 

He looks at her as if she is a ghost. "You...do not wish me gone, then? I thought, if you knew the truth as you now do, you would have me disappear from Hamilton's life for good."

"You were incorrect to think so," Eliza says.

Laurens does drink from his glass then, deeply. "I will answer him if he writes," he says at last, "but as I've said, our past dalliances are at an end. I will not encourage more of them, for your sake." 

"My dearest John," Eliza says, a hand on her breast in feigned shock, "who do you think stands beside Alexander's desk as he writes those missives, and sees every word he pours out to you? Why, I have even offered a suggestion once or twice, but my turns of phrase will never compare, of course."

________________________________

Hamilton does not know what else to do except bring him home. He mumbles something to the captain about the local authorities, that he will see to all the details, that the _Vigilant_ has done its part in the matter, thank you for your service in the protection of our shores. He orders the shackles struck from the prisoner. Finds a cloak to throw over his thin, pitched-forward shoulders. Keeps his hands on those shoulders to lead or perhaps to convince himself that there is flesh and blood beneath his fingers. Though it is dark out, the streets of Philadelphia still churn with carriages and pedestrians alike, and Hamilton does not know if anyone recognizes the Secretary of the Treasury spiriting a strange ruffian to his house in the late evening.

He does not care if they do.

They enter through the back door, which slams shut loudly in the breeze as it always does. Eliza calls from the parlor: "Alexander, take care. Philip is just now abed." 

Hamilton cannot find the words to answer her. He stands in their small kitchen with his hands still clutching at Laurens' shoulders, peering into his companion's face for any sign that he knows his wife's sweet voice. But there is nothing.

The scrape of a chair, a small sigh suppressed. "Really, Alexander—" Eliza says as she sweeps into the room. There is a ball of fabric in her hands, some sewing perhaps. She sees them both and freezes. Her work falls to the floor. 

"What is this?" she asks after a long moment of silence.

"You see it too then," Hamilton said. "It is not just my mind playing tricks. It is him, is it not?"

Their guest stands awkwardly, silent, flinching when Eliza approaches and puts her hands upon his whiskered cheeks. "Dear Lord, John, what has happened to you?"

"I do not know," he croaks. 

Eliza looks helplessly at Hamilton, and he manages to say, "A bath first, I think. I can fetch some of my clothes; they may be a bit small. But then again, I have grown a little about the middle since last we—" He falls silent. Goes to the water bucket to fill the heavy kettle. 

When the copper tub is full and Laurens is left to bathe in private, Hamilton and Eliza stand in the passage just without and speak in hushed tones. 

"How is this possible?" Eliza demands. "How is he alive?"

Hamilton runs a hand through his long hair. He keeps it loose now, hanging about his shoulders. He has no time for queues. "I'm not certain. One dead body, perhaps marred and bloated, could be easily mistaken for another in the chaos of battle...." 

"And his bearing?" Eliza folds her arms about herself, though the night is warm. "Why does he look at me as if he does not know my face? It has been years but—"

"He says he has suffered a loss of memory. There remains nothing in his mind, myself included, since his supposed death in South Carolina. I have not been able to coax more from him, but it appears he has been living as a transient aboard ships of ill repute. At least, that is where he was just discovered."

"Memory loss?" Eliza's gaze shifts back and forth, seeing nothing. "Is that possible?"

"I have heard stories. Other soldiers, affected terribly by the war." Hamilton looks back to the kitchen door. He strains to hear anything from that room, but there is nothing but silence. "We should make certain," he says, "that it is truly John. That we are not letting our hopes blind us."

Eliza nods, the fingers of her right hand curling against her lips. "Will you do it?" 

Hamilton grasps her hand in his and gives it a quick squeeze. "It will take only a moment." He thinks to kiss her, but decides against it. His hands shake, and he releases Eliza before she notices his fear. He ducks into the kitchen. 

Laurens sits in the copper tub, steam rising from the surface of the water. He is not washing himself, merely sitting. He looks up and notes Hamilton's entrance but remains silent. 

"May I see your arm, please?" Hamilton asks. "The left one."

John hesitates, but in the end he lifts his arm from the bathwater with a small slosh and holds it, dripping, for Hamilton's examination. This he does with great care, bending close to observe the skin where the arm joins the shoulder. John Laurens had always been given to freckles, but these came and went with the summer sun; it's a scar that Hamilton seeks, one Laurens had earned on the battlefield. Hamilton had dressed the wound himself many times, and he remembers its shape as if it were yesterday. 

There it is, exactly where it's supposed to be, a jagged crescent moon carved into John's body. 

"I am not mad," Hamilton whispers to himself.

"That's a comfort." John returns his arm to the bath. "Though being the guest of a madman is preferable to being jailed, I think."

________________________________

Eliza sits at her new writing desk, a wedding gift from her sister, and contemplates the letters before her. One is from John Laurens to Alexander, sent weeks ago all the way from Paris, where the Colonel has been dispatched to plead for French aid. The other is from Alexander to her, explaining that he's enclosed John's letter for her perusal.

In it, Laurens seems to reluctantly consider Alexander's invitation to visit them upon his return to America to make up for his quick departure following their wedding. John writes in a crabbed hand, so small that Eliza must squint at his words. I do not doubt your generosity, John writes, but I fear I would have to read that same invitation from your beloved wife's own pen, for I have no wish to intrude upon a new and happy couple. Our war has taken you away from her for long enough. 

Eliza has not wanted to post her own letters to Laurens, content to let Alexander handle that correspondence. She is not a writer such as they are, with their carefully built paragraphs and clever double meanings. But if the man is that discomfited by her proposal and thinks her confused in its offering—

She writes him a short note begging forgiveness with, perhaps, unbecoming bluntness. It was my perception, she says, since you have kept a wife of sorts and with that wife have had a child, that the thought of being with both woman and man in one bed would not pain you so. It now occurs to me that the child might not be of your seed, and that the wife may have been given your good name only to preserve her. If this is so, and women on the whole do not appeal, please accept a thousand apologies, for I would never harry a man onto the dance floor who did not wish to be there. 

A response is not expected, and yet it arrives. John is effusive in his own apologies, saying that she was correct in her first assumption; the child, as far as he knows, is his own, begotten in the usual manner, and though he and his wife have no plans to live as such, he will of course provide for her simple comforts as a gentleman should, for he is no cad. He understands the strangeness of that assertion, alluding only slightly to the nights he's spent in the arms of someone who is not his wife, and a man at that.

I have not explained this even to our Hammie, he writes, for I did not know how to frame it for him. Perhaps he believes my nature is exactly like his, and that I can love widely and equally all manner of people. In truth, I cannot. My fool heart, I'm sorry to say, is owned by that singular man and none other. And yet, my fondness for your sweet self and your humbling magnanimity makes me wonder if I could, in fact, meet you both as you suggest. 

Yet you will most likely withdraw the invitation now that you know how it is with me, he writes, ending the letter in a hurried rush. Your obedient servant, ever yours, JL. 

She decides, at last, to respond with only a single line: Our dearest Colonel Laurens, I still hope you will find the time to join us after what will surely be your success in Paris. 

She does not sign the missive. Rather, she retrieves her small collection of charcoals from her desk and sketches a little cartoon at the bottom of the page. John enjoys sketching, Alexander has told her. She prays that her work is enough to at least bring a smile to that serious face. 

The lines take the shape of three bodies, classically nude and draped over one another on a delicate chesterfield.

________________________________

When John is finally scrubbed clean and wrapped in Alexander's banyan, they bring him into the Hamiltons' bedroom so that they might outfit him properly. Eliza says, "A shave is in order. Shall I leave the implements here?" She busies herself with a basin of warmed water, with locating a tin of shaving soap. Even now her husband is rooting through his chest of shirts.

John stands thin and gaunt in the middle of their bedroom carpet, his previously bushy beard already clipped close with Eliza's sewing scissors. "I'm afraid I...haven't wielded a razor blade in some time, madam. I may have forgotten how." 

"No matter." Eliza hides her concern at this new piece of information by moving a straight-backed chair beside John and patting its cushion. "Have a seat. Alexander will do it for you."

Alexander looks up at her. His hair is as wild as his eyes. "I will?"

"Of course. We can't have our guest running about with a full beard on his face. What would the neighbors say?" Eliza attempts a laugh, but the problem is too real. What will they tell people when asked who this man is? She picks up Alexander's razor and strop and holds it out to him. The blade is French, the finest Perret. A gift from Paris. "Here. Please."

She prepares the soap while Alexander hones the blade. It is so quiet in the room, there is only their breathing and the sound of the clock ticking downstairs. Once the lather is built, Eliza applies it to the sharp angles of John's jaw. He shies away at first as he'd done at the sight of the scissors before, but she murmurs to him some nonsense, "It's all right, it's only me," and he settles. 

Alexander takes John by the point of his chin and tilts his head. John stares ahead placidly, unmoving. Eliza watches her husband and sees how badly his hand trembles as it lifts the razor blade. 

"Alexander—" she says.

He lowers the blade to his side. "I— I'm sorry."

"Give it here." Eliza takes the razor and adjusts John to face her. She is not practiced in this, of course, but at least her hands are steady. The blade scrapes away the soap and whiskers, and she is so very careful not to cut his face. Down the planes of his cheeks, 'round his chin, slowly under this nose in the divot above his lips, under his ears and soft on his neck. 

John watches her as she works, his eyes dark and clouded. Eliza wipes the blade clean with a piece of cloth. She hears a noise at her side, and she turns to find Alexander weeping very quietly, two tears tracks running from his eyes. She understands; it's John's face before them, at last.

"I will put him in the blue room," Eliza says, then to John, "Come, you must be tired." 

He carries a stack of Alexander's clothing to the small guest bedroom, where Eliza tucks him in like a child before closing the door with a soft click.

Alexander is sitting on their bed when she returns, his head in his hands. "I should write a letter to South Carolina," he says, "to Henry Laurens."

Eliza tries to imagine the aged man receiving such a letter. The shock may very well kill him. "Perhaps we should wait. At least until we understand more about John's affliction." 

Alexander finally looks up at her. "His family deserves to know that he lives."

Henry Laurens was a tyrant toward his son at the best of times, and it's difficult not to envision him now locking John in an asylum somewhere deep in the country. It has been such a trying evening, and Eliza is so tired of being the level-headed one in the room. She feels the tears prick her eyes as she chokes out, "They will take him away from us. Alex, don't let them—"

"My beloved Betsey." He stands and goes to her, folding her in his arms. "You are right. We should wait for his strength to return before we act."

"We lost him once," Eliza sobs, unable now to stop the torrent. "It was not just you who grieved—"

"I know, I know."

"—though you sometimes acted as if—"

"I know." He kisses her hair.

________________________________

Eliza enters the sitting room of the little house they are renting to find John Laurens standing there as described by the maid, with a satchel slung over one shoulder, looking very nervous but dapper in his uniform. "Welcome home," she says warmly, and kisses him in the Parisian style on both cheeks. He returns the gesture, his hands clamped to her elbows.

"Mrs. Hamilton, your beauty has only grown since last I saw you," John says. 

So formal in his praise! Eliza smiles, glad that she had thought to purchase as many bottles of wine as she did. Alexander trundles down the stairs, his hair pulled back into a messy knot and ink splotches adorning his hands. "John!" he cries. "We weren't expecting you for another day!" The way his face lights up is worth the million butterflies in Eliza's stomach. 

John holds out his hand for Alexander to shake, but Eliza laughs to see her husband bat it aside and catch John up in a fierce embrace. Though he is the slighter of the two, Alexander exerts enough strength to lift John an inch from the floor. 

"The skiff up the river was swifter than I expected," John says. A smile stretches across his face, transforming him from a stoic soldier to a shy, handsome boy. "My god, it is good to see you, Ham." He turns to Eliza with a flush upon his cheeks. "And you as well, Mrs. Hamilton. Thank you for your letters. They sustained me during my time abroad."

Alexander glances back and forth between John and his wife. "You've been corresponding?" he asks. "That's— It's wonderful. I hope you have not been gossiping too much about me."

"Oh, our correspondence rarely touched upon you, husband. There are other topics, you know," Eliza teases, and Alexander gives a gasp in mock offense. "Come, Colonel, I will pour you a drink." 

She takes John by the arm and leads him to the sideboard where the sherry sits.

________________________________

When Alexander descends to the breakfast table, the children are already there with Eliza and their guest, and they are excited to find a stranger among them. Eliza informs her son and daughter that this is their Uncle John, but says no more except that he is an old friend who served with Hamilton years ago. Philip especially is filled with rapture at the thought of sharing his toast and jam with a war hero. He peppers the poor fellow with all sorts of questions about redcoats and muskets and pistols and horses, and John smiles at him with watery kindness but says, "I'm afraid I don't recall much. I've grown quite old, you see."

Philip frowns at this. "Pappa remembers every bit," he says, "and you two are of an age, are you not?" 

Hamilton is about to protest but John beats him to it. 

"Would that I had a mind like his." John takes a bite of his toast and chews before saying, "I can tell you about pirates, if that suits."

"Pirates!" Philip cries. 

Eliza shushes him. "Ah, nearly time for you to be delivered to your tutor, darling son. Alexander," she addresses him from across the table, "will you take him? I have so much work to do." She glances meaningfully at John, who will need more clothes than the set he now wears, and better fitting shoes, and all manner of things. 

Hamilton nods. "I'll see to it. John, would you like to—?" He searches for the words; why is his tongue failing him so? "Accompany me?" 

John stares at husband and wife in turn before answering with a slow shrug. "I could if you wish," he says. 

So it is settled: Eliza takes little Angelica with her to visit the various shops downtown, and Alexander will escort Philip to his schooling with John. They leave the house as one party, then split into their two factions at the corner of the street, waving goodbyes to each other. It is a fine day. The sun is bright and warm, and young Philip skips ahead of them on the sidewalk to investigate the flowers that sprout in pots and windowboxes. 

"He is a fine boy," John says after a few blocks of silence. "You must be very proud."

"I am." Alexander regards his old friend closely. His profile, so familiar, has weathered a bit with age. The skin is rougher as if chapped by the elements or perhaps just a hard life. It seems so strange to think that the last eight years, which have been good, clean years for Hamilton, have treated John so differently. "Do you really remember nothing since the war?"

John tips his head in acknowledgement. "The first thing I recall is waking up in the hold of a ship in the middle of an Atlantic crossing. There was a storm—" He shakes his head. "I had no name that I could remember. I earned a few. Tell me, was I a good man when you knew me?" 

"The best of us," Alexander says without hesitation. 

A rueful smile greets him at that. John looks ahead at where Philip is petting a lazing housecat on a stoop. "I'm surprised you recognized me, then. There are things a man must do when he has nothing, not even his mind." 

"Whatever horrors you were forced into—" 

"I ended up in France during their war," John interrupts. "Do you know what they were doing in Paris? I saw children—some no older than your boy—dashed against the cobblestones. I took a gold ring from one such child's dead hand." His eyes, ablaze with furious grief, lock with Hamilton's. "If I were you, sir, I would not have a creature such as myself living under your roof."

Alexander gropes for a word to say, but a sudden shriek ahead of them arrests his attention. "Philip!" he cries, and sees his child sprawled across the pavement amid the bustle of the crowd. 

He rushes forward, aware somehow that John is right beside him, matching his pace. They reach Philip at the same moment and Alexander gently turns him over. The boy is sniffling; his breeches are torn at one knee where a scrape oozes slow, red blood. 

"I— I tripped on a loose stone," Philip says. 

"I'm here, it's all right," Alexander murmurs, his hands fluttering helplessly over his son's body.

John reaches into the depths of Alexander's coat, which hangs open in deference to the sunny weather, and grabs his handkerchief without a word. This he presses to Philip's small injury, and the boy calms under their combined attentions. 

"I'm fine, Uncle John," he says through his tears. "Pappa, I'm sorry. That was clumsy of me." Even at his tender age, he is too proud by half, Alexander thinks. He looks at his son's eyes, a light hazel that matches neither Eliza's warm brown nor his own deep black. A wild curl is brushed aside, back in its place behind Philip's ear. 

"You must be careful," he says, and his words are choked with the emotion in his throat. "I can't bear to see you hurt." He takes his son in his arms and helps him to his feet. The entire time, his eyes are on John, and John folds the bloody handkerchief away in his own pocket. 

They walk on toward the tutor's house, and John speaks up after a moment. "That reminded me of a very clumsy thing your Pappa did during the war," he says to Philip.

Philip, always eager to hear more stories of the revolution, dashes away the last of his tears and looks up at John. "Really? What did he do?"

"Oh, nothing really. Merely ran headlong toward a redcoat-occupied farmhouse armed with nothing but a torch." John shoots Philip a secret smile. "The idea was to catch their door afire, I believe, but he instead received a minor wound in the attempt. Still, it rallied the boys to see such courage. The day was ours after that little spectacle." 

Philip gives a happy whoop, his earlier troubles forgotten. "Pappa is a hero!"

"And here is your tutor's," Alexander says as they come abreast of the place. He drops a kiss on his boy's curly head. "Study well today, son." 

They watch him trundle up the steps, and Alexander waves as he disappears inside the home. Only then does he turn to John, allowing the pain to bloom on his face.

"That story. With the torch…."

John blinks. "It just came to me. I only meant to— Did it really happen?" 

"It did. But it was not Hamilton who acted as the hero that day. It was you, John." His gaze lingers at John's shoulder, where the scar from that day rests in a sickle moon curve under his clothes. "Do you really not remember?"

John turns away, already heading back down the busy street. Hamilton rushes to follow. 

"Just flashes," John whispers. "I receive the smallest flashes. I do not know what they mean most times. I merely wanted to distract your son." 

Alexander swallows and casts a look over his shoulder in Philip's direction.

________________________________

Eliza falls back against the crisp, cool bedsheets, feeling them as a balm on her naked skin. She is flushed everywhere and has finally made it here, to the bedroom. She reaches for her companions and her hands find John's wrists first.

"Come," she says, "I really must insist."

"You have fed me too much wine," John murmurs, for he is very pink about the face and ears. His hair is an untamed cascade about his freckled shoulders; Alexander had pulled it free from its club hours ago, when they were getting acquainted in the parlor. 

"She has given you just enough." Alexander appears behind their guest, mouthing at his bare neck. "Though if you do not jest in this, and would rather we show you to a lonely guest room—?"

John groans, arches into Alexander's teeth. "No, no, I only hope I am not so drunk that I will do or say something foolish."

"Foolish sounds perfectly fine right now." Eliza tugs him closer. "As an example: John, will you please kiss me while my husband looks on?" 

"It would be my pleasure, Mrs. Hamilton," John says, and falls to his task as ordered. He is quite adept, Eliza finds. Perhaps more tentative with her than Alexander is, but that is to be expected. 

"Our dear Laurens," Eliza breathes across his lips once they are parted, "would you do me another kindness? I have read an account of your talents in Alexander's letters and I would very much like to see it in practice for my own education."

"My talents?" John blinks. "You'll have to specify."

"I believe she means your mouth," Alexander says. He joins them on the bed, sliding along Eliza's hip with his naughty-boy grin. 

John begins by showing Eliza how one might go about it: the gentle nudge of Alexander's foreskin, the delicate licks at his cockhead, a subtle roll of his stones. Then he takes Alex into his mouth entirely, and Eliza watches her husband's face contort in ecstasy. She kisses him, then joins John in his work so that they are both sucking him. Alexander declares her the greatest genius of the age.

When Alexander finally comes off, Eliza shares her mouthful of seed with John, who is eager for a taste. She pushes her tongue into his mouth, and it is lewd, and it is salt-laced. He pulls back from her with a single silvery thread still connecting their lips, and when she speaks, it snaps. 

"I'd very much like to be taken now, John," she says, "and it appears you are the best candidate at the moment." His eyes take on a glassy look, and he nods.

Another innovation: John lies beneath her flat on his back and she mounts him, riding him at her leisure. Alexander, sated yet entranced by the picture they make, stretches out beside them and pets their sweating flanks, their damp hair. He kisses their mouths, any skin he can find, and he calls them both his wonderful beauties, his arousing minxes, his two beloveds. 

Alexander is there to swallow his cries when John finds his end inside her. It is exactly the sight Eliza needs. She shudders in happiness as she reaches her own peak, her husband's arms encircling her, holding her upright so that she won't, she supposes, fall atop John and crush the air from his lungs.

________________________________

The flashes come with increasing frequency. There are times when John will be eating supper with them, then suddenly lock eyes with Eliza and say, "You used to sketch the most exquisite drawings. Do you still practice that craft?"

Or he will glance at Hamilton as he passes the bread and say, "Do you remember the taste of that awful firecake we made when in camp?"

Eliza encourages John in his newfound memories, fills in the gaps where he cannot recall exact details, but otherwise allows him to come to the discoveries himself. She exchanges some letters with a very respected doctor, a friend of her father's, wherein she makes some discreet inquiries; the doctor assures her that most lost memories will return and that time is the only thing that might heal the mind. 

Angelica had long ago made plans for the summer, to join them upstate, but John's presence makes this impossible. Eliza writes to her sister to say that she should go meet their father directly after her arrival in New York without them, using some flimsy excuse of her daughter's lingering fever. After all, she writes, dear Alexander is forever busy with his work in attempting to establish his banking system and she cannot leave him at such a critical moment. 

This is too bad, Angelica writes from New York harbor where her ship makes landfall. I've come all this way and will be deprived of your fine company (and that of your husband's) for an indeterminate amount of weeks? Is my little namesake really that ill? Perhaps I should come to Philadelphia instead and assist in her care.

Eliza posts her further apologies, telling her sister not to go through such trouble, that her daughter will surely recover soon, and that the city of Philadelphia is so foul in this hot season that it should be avoided when at all possible. Angelica grudgingly relents in her reply.

I will wait for you upstate, then, she writes, and pray for all your family's relief. 

Eliza prays for the same.

That night, she wakes in her bed at a very late hour, roused from a deep sleep to find John standing there next to her. He is a silent sentinel in the dark, merely watching her and Alexander through curious eyes. She suppresses her gasp of surprise, but he hears it anyway and blinks down at her.

"I am so sorry," he says. "I thought— I must have dreamed—"

"There is no need for apologies between us," she whispers. "Have you...remembered something?"

He hesitates. Eliza waits, then, softly and without words, moves closer to Alexander, who is snoring lightly. She holds up the bedclothes for John in silent invitation, but he shakes his head.

"No." His voice is very small in the dark. "No, it is my mistake. Good night, Mrs. Hamilton."

"John—" But he is already gone, shutting the door behind him.

________________________________

Alexander is the first to wake. He finds himself bookended by his Betsey and his John, their loose hair tickling his lips. They both sleep in a kittenish sprawl with their limbs flung wide to entangle with his own and each other's. Hamilton takes a moment to smooth a curl from John's eyes, to press a soft kiss to Eliza's jaw.

He slips from the bed to sit at his wife's little writing desk, which is folded tightly in the corner of the bedroom. His mind is very clear even after last night's wine and lusty exercises, and he needs to write something. His fingers itch with it.

It must be hours before he hears a sleepy sigh and the rustle of bedclothes. He doesn't look up from his work, but from the cedarwood scent and the feel of corded muscle in the arms that wrap about his shoulders, he knows it is Laurens. 

"Do you always write in the nude these days?" John's molasses drawl flows into his ear.

Alexander huffs a laugh. "Only when I have no time nor inclination to dress before I forget the words I want." 

"Come back to sleep." John kisses his neck, sweeping away the fall of his hair to do so. 

"I'm not quite finished," he says.

John's nimble fingers relieve him of his quill amidst a token grunt of protest. "Indulge me, Ham. Tomorrow I must leave for the South." He doesn't say how it affects him to be parted from Alexander again so soon. He does not need to; Hamilton hears it in every breath.

"I suppose I should not leave you and Betsey to cold sheets," he says, and allows himself to be led back to bed.

________________________________

Eliza is leafing through some bills one afternoon when John appears beside her little writing desk and says, "Do my wife and daughter still live?"

She puts her quill in its inkpot and regards him closely. "I'm unsure," she confesses. "Would you like me to make some inquiries?" 

"I— Perhaps not yet," John says. His eyes skate to the window, toward the seaport. 

Eliza dares to touch his shaking hand. "I will not tell anyone of your reappearance that you do not wish to know."

He thanks her and that is all they say on the subject for some time.

She watches closely, though, as John sits on the floor with the children and entertains them while Eliza sees to the household tasks. It is an excellent arrangement, actually. Eliza has done without servants for so long—only a girl who comes in once or twice a week to clean and a boy who assists in delivering foodstuffs in the wintertime—and she is stretched thin with housework and child-rearing. 

John is gentle and quiet especially with little Angelica, who sometimes gazes at things no one else can see and talks to herself, much like her father, about the things she dreams of. With John she is shy at first, but soon allows him into her secret world, playing with him upon the carpet with her small poppets made of cotton scraps. She makes them dance along and John gives them all different voices. 

Philip is a more rambunctious child, and yet John handles him with just as much, if not more, care. He tells him stories about life on the high seas, teaches him to construct a hat from bits of paper, allows him to ride on John's strong-again shoulders. 

Eliza takes a break from her housework to sit on the back stoop, her eyes shaded from the afternoon sun by her hand as she watches John cavort about the garden with Philip on his back. It is amazing, the change in the man within just a few short— 

It's been more than two months, Eliza realizes. How time runs ahead! 

A shadow falls over her, and she looks up to find Alexander, home at a reasonable hour for once. He is watching John and his son with a sort of longing painting his face into shadow.

"He looks happy," her husband says, and she does not dare ask to whom he refers. She reaches up and holds his hand in hers, and he squeezes her fingers, grateful, she thinks, for her silence.

________________________________

They are not a matched set, Eliza thinks as her husband and their lover return to bed, her mind still in a half-doze. While their minds are of a similar shape, and their natures both fiercely impulsive, John would hide the medals of his love in a drawer before he allowed them to be seen. It is clear, this distinction between them, in the way Alexander rests his hand along John's spine as he ushers him back under the bedsheets, and the way John flushes and presses his face in his pillow as if to keep his reaction a secret.

"Thank you for bringing him back," Eliza says to him, and reaches for his narrow waist. She does not sense any regret in him, as shy as he is with his heart, for John turns to her, burrows his nose at her throat, and falls asleep with a tiny sigh. 

Over the top of his curly head, Eliza meets Alexander's eyes. They dance with bright happiness. "Are you pleased with the results of your proposal, wife?" he asks as he crawls into bed next to them. 

"Very much so." She pets John's hair, smiling. "Do you imagine we might…? Again? All of us, like this, together?"

Alexander props his head in his head, laying on his side to regard her fondly. "Of course," he says. "The moment the war is won, we shall make plans."

________________________________

After Eliza has finished putting the children to bed, she pauses on the stairs at the sound of voices arguing. Alexander is speaking in hushed tones but John's voice is rising. Rising in panic.

"Alex, please! If it is true, I must know!" 

There is a long moment of silence where Eliza wonders if she imagined the outburst. "It is…likely," Alexander finally says. 

There is a sob. "Oh, god preserve the boy." Eliza sits heavily upon the stair. So John has finally noticed. 

She peeks through the bars of the bannister and sees Alexander place a comforting hand on John's shaking shoulder. His voice is gentle. "It was apparent very early. Born with a full head of curls. And yet your death was so fresh— In Betsey's eyes, I could see she perceived the truth. Every year, Philip grew more like our dear Laurens in face and feature, though we never spoke of it."

John twists away from Alexander's touch and makes for the front door. "I must go," he says, "I cannot stay here."

"John, don't—"

"People will take note of the similarities, and I know how much it would pain you to hear such rumors applied to your own son." 

Eliza holds her breath, knowing that John is right in this. In a year or two, the connection will be obvious even to the most obtuse observer. And there is nothing Alexander fears more than the spectre of illegitimacy. And yet, this is John, the father of her son, her friend. 

She resolves not to remain sitting upon a stair while this decision is made. 

She picks up her skirts and hurries to the door just in time. John's hand is on the knob, even as Alexander pleads with him. 

"For once in your life, do not act rashly!" he is saying, and in any other instance, Eliza might find this mildly amusing in its hypocrisy. 

Eliza draws herself up and snaps out, "Colonel Laurens, take your hand from that door please. I will not have you leaving my house in such a state."

John freezes as does Alexander. Then he removes his hand from the knob. "Mrs. Hamilton, my apologies. I did not realize you had overheard." 

"You should be glad that I did. What foolishness, to run out into the night with no place to go. If you wish to leave us, that is your choice, but I beg you to first secure the promise of a safe destination, for I won't have you returning to a life of danger and— And—" Eliza curses the tears welling in her eyes. She is remembering another time she was made bereft of John Laurens; a short letter in her hand with very few details; the heavy weight of Alexander sagging against her as she told him the news. The loss had caused him to lock some great door inside his heart for eight long years. And Eliza will be damned if she allows it to happen again. 

"And you have family here in us," she manages at last. "Only, I want to impress upon you how little I care for what others might say. About you, about any of it." Eliza looks to Alexander and his face is an open book detailing his complete agreement. 

"Oh, Betsey, please do not cry," John says, and takes her into his arms with strange care. His chest heaves under her cheek, warm and alive. She closes her eyes.

He's never called her Betsey before, only Alexander has done so. But she is not about to quibble.

They are all three of them walking back upstairs when there is a rap at the door. Alexander shoos them ahead. "If it is a messenger from my office, I will say it can wait until morning," he promises.

Eliza leads John to her bedroom, asking, "Would you mind? Just to sleep, just for tonight?"

"Is the bed large enough for comfort?" John blushes even as he makes the jest. 

"We will manage." Eliza meets his smile. 

She is seated on the edge of the mattress, allowing John to take her hair down from its arrangement, when Alexander returns. 

"Who was that at the door?" she asks idly. 

"A strange woman," he says, climbing onto the bed beside her. "She said she was in some sort of trouble. I gathered it was financial, so I gave her a few notes. Pray excuse me, I told her, for I have some pressing business awaiting me upstairs." 

"You should have offered to walk her home," John admonishes. "A lady alone on the streets? This late at night?" 

"Ah, shall I leave to catch her?" Alexander makes a show of getting up from his spot on the bed and Eliza, laughing, shoves him back. 

They sleep in nightshirts and, in Eliza's case, a fairly modest nightgown which she dons behind the privacy of her changing screen. After some small discussion, it's decided Alexander should sleep between them, as neither Eliza nor John like feeling closed in tight. A curved set of three takes shape under the blankets: John holding fast to Alexander, who in turn holds fast to Eliza, who clasps her hands over her husband's where they rest over her breast. 

In the days that follow, the Hamiltons present to their friends and acquaintances their new family steward. Secretary to Alexander, household help to Eliza, this mysterious, inscrutable man known only as John is their constant shadow. His hat is forever pulled low on his brow, and his face, like Hamilton's, keeps a neatly trimmed sort of facial hair. Many comment on how difficult it is to find loyal servants these days, and how lucky that family is to have secured one so stalwart. 

This John of theirs, you see, remains at their side for many, many years.

**Author's Note:**

> [Poose](http://archiveofourown.org/users/poose) helped me so much in writing this thing. Thank you! [Ji](http://crying-of-lot-37.tumblr.com/) gives me lots of Laurens feels, so this is a gift for that.
> 
> I am normally Washington/Hamilton trash so I hope you liked this, which gave me a chance to write Eliza and John, who are so dear to me. I'm on [tumblr](http://stuffimgoingtohellfor.tumblr.com/) always talking about my hamfeels. I love you and your comments should you decide to leave them, you lovely people!
> 
> [Reblog this fic here](http://stuffimgoingtohellfor.tumblr.com/post/141724099152/a-complete-unmatched-set-triedunture-hamilton) if you are into that!


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